Distant Friend

Eleven years
and three thousand miles
ago
we sat in rooms together
and talked
without the high-tech
crutches

Now I learn
you are on your way
to Aruba
for a short vacation,
(your iPhone response
--sent from the plane--
to my most recently emailed
"how are you?").

I look up Aruba
on my laptop
in order to fashion
a vision of you

and decide to place your image,
walking,
on a sandy beach
gazing at blue
iguanas.

Upon your return
I learn that you are
"very much
in transition
about what's important" . . .
This news flash
is explained in
shorthand
(five to seven words,
give or take a few)
"time being
what it is" (says you).

"I need," you add
(one blink prior
to signing off)
"to make some choices."
No further clues.

But you do reveal
(for which I am grateful)
that you are lying prone
upon your couch,
alone,
on week three of antibiotics
for the sinus infection
from the cold you caught
on the island.

I gush my own
abbreviated tome
(smiley emoticon)
in return: "Take lots
of probiotics!"

Then I google the question
"What (pray tell) are the choices
for my distant friend?"

Yahoo responds
with advice (about space
and time, blah blah blah).
Plus, it notes that:
"the Chinese moon is round"
and something else as well,
about a "ghostlight tango."

I try again:
to tell you how I'm craving
being privy
to more.
I want to know
for example, if you are still
writing poems. If so,
could you send me some?

You reply:
"I'm studying
spirituality instead.
It's fascinating."
The End.

You make me want to race
in circles
around ten Chinese moons,
and do the crazy fandango,
dressed
(in ghostlight)
to the nines.

Either of these
would be easier, in the end,
than this, our far-fetched
stretch from west to east

though at least you did send
that attachment
(solo photo
of blue iguana
perched alone on rock).

You tell me that the locals
call them Bleu Bleu's.
I drag this gem of detail
to my email folder
where I swaddle
every byte, dear friend,
(remote or not)
then cradle it
for future reference.

Posted at 01:31 PM in Poems | Permalink